Walter Gorsuch recently
completed an M.A. thesis on the relation between endurantist accounts
of persistence and the nature of time, entitled On Merricks’ Definition of ‘Whole Presence’ and the Alleged Contradiction that Arises between Eternalism and Endurantism, which I directed.

Undergraduate Honors Theses

At the undergraduate level, I
have in recent years supervised the following honors theses:

Zachary Rojas (2013) On Effects Preceding their Causes

Patrick Decker (2010) A Defense of Qualia. (Patrick wasw admitted to
the Ph.D. program at Princeton University.)

Bridgette Bailie Peterson (2010) Temporal Becoming and Dynamic
Time. (Bailie is in the Ph.D. program at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst.)

Jack Spencer (2007) Meta-Laws. (Jack completed his Ph.D. at Princeton University, and is now an assistant professor at M.I.T.)

Heidi Buetow (2004) Persistence through Time and Change.
(Heidi is completing her Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts at
Amherst.)

Alex Baia (2004) The Non-Contradiction of Tensed Facts:
A Partial Reply to McTaggart. (Alex has completed his Ph.D. at the University of Texas at
the University of Texas.)

RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS

My primary research interests are in the areas of metaphysics,
epistemology, philosophy of religion, and ethics. In metaphysics, my
work is concerned with the nature of time, causation, and laws of
nature. In epistemology, I am interested in problems connected with our
knowledge of the physical world and other minds, and in the classical
problem of induction. In philosophy of religion, my primary focus is
upon the question of the rationality or irrationality of belief in the
existence of God. In ethics, my research is concerned with issues in
the area of applied ethics, including sexual morality, euthanasia,
abortion, and cloning.

Books - Published

Abortion – Three
Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2009) (This book, which is co-authored with Professor Alison
Jaggar, Professor Philip E. Devine, and Associate Professor Emerita
Celia Wolf-Devine, is in the Point/Counterpoint series edited by James
Sterba.)

Knowledge of God (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing,
2008) (This book, which is co-authored with Professor Alvin
Plantinga, is in Blackwell's Great Debates
in Philosophy series.)

La natura del tempo, (Milano: McGraw-Hill,
1999).
(This is an Italian translation of Time, Tense, and Causation, with a
new
preface and some revisions.)

This book is being
written for a series of texts that John Martin Fischer and John Perry
are editing for Oxford University Press. I am now revising a
draft of this book, which I shall be submitting to the editors
in the spring of 2015.

The Refutation of Skepticism

This book will cover both skepticism about
induction and skepticism about the existence of an external, physical
world, about the past, and about other minds.

Indirect Realism and the Philosophy of
Perception

This book will consist of a defense
of indirect realism.

DVD

Is God Real? – a debate with
William Lane Craig at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte,
The Southern Evangelical Seminary, 2010.

"Abortion," in The Cambridge Companion to Life and Death, edited by Steven Luper, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, 243-63.

“Philosophy, Critical Thinking, and ‘After-Birth Abortion: Why
Should the Baby Live?’” The Journal of Medical Ethics 39/5, 2013,
266-72. Available free online as the “Editor’s Choice” article
for this issue: http://jme.bmj.com/content/39/5/266.full

“Michael Huemer and the Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism,” in Seemings and Justification – New Essays on Dogmatism and Phenomenal Conservatism, edited by Chris Tucker, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 306-27.

“Helping People to Think Critically About Their Religious Beliefs”, in
50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists, edited by Russell
Blackford and Udo Schüklenk", New York, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009,
310-22.

"Personhood," in A Companion to Bioethics – Second Edition, edited by
Helge Kuhse and Peter Singer, Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, 2009,
129-39. (This is a revised and expanded version of my essay in
the first edition in 1998.)

"Is Backward Causation Logically Possible?" in Philosophical Studies
(Department of Philosophy, The University of Tokyo), 18, 1999,
1-32. (This paper consists of a combination of material
from sections 3.2, 4.5, and 4.6 from the 1997 edition of Time, Tense,
and Causation, together with material added to correct an error in that
earlier discussion. The added material was then used in the
revised, paperback edition of Time, Tense, and Causation (2000), partly
in section 4.6.2, but mainly in the Appendix.)

"The Metaphysics of Time," in The Arguments of Time (The British
Academy Centenary volume on Time), edited by Jeremy Butterfield, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 1999, 21-42.

A Japanese translation of "The Moral Status of the Cloning of
Humans," in Studien zur Praktischen Philosophie
(Jissentetsugaku-Kenkyu), 22, 1999, 53-97.

Causation," in The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences,
edited by Robert Wilson and Frank Keil, MIT Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 1999, 108-110.

"The Nature of Causation: A Singularist Account," in Canadian
Philosophers: Celebrating Twenty Years of the Canadian Journal of
Philosophy, edited by David Copp, Canadian Journal of Philosophy,
Supplementary 16, 1990, 271-322. Reprinted in:
Metaphysics: An Anthology, edited by Jaegwon Kim and Ernest Sosa,
Blackwell, Oxford, 1999, 458-82.

"In Defense of Abortion and Infanticide," in Moral Issues, edited by
Jan Narveson, Oxford University Press, Toronto and New York, 1983,
215-33; in The Problem of Abortion, 2nd Edition, edited by Joel
Feinberg, Wadsworth, Belmont, California, 1984, 120-34; in Bioethics -
Readings and Cases, edited by Baruch Brody and Tristram Engelhardt,
Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1987, 146-52; and in What
Is a Person?, edited by Michael Goodman, Humana Press, Clifton, New
Jersey, 1988. This article has also been translated into Swedish.

"Decisions to Terminate Life and the Concept of a Person," in
Ethical Issues Relating to Life and Death, edited by John Ladd, Oxford,
1979, 62-92.

"Infanticide: A Philosophical Perspective," in the
Encyclopedia of Bioethics, edited by Warren T. Reich, New York, 1978,
742-51.

"The Nature of Laws," Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 7/4, 1977,
667-98. Reprinted in: The Philosophy of Science - Volume 1
- Explanation, Law, and Cause, edited by Lawrence Sklar, New York and
London, 2000, 261-92, and in Readings on Laws of Nature, edited by John
W. Carroll, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
2004, 38-70.

"Abortion and Infanticide," Philosophy & Public Affairs, 2/1,
1972, 37-65, and reprinted, with a postscript, in The Rights and Wrongs
of Abortion, edited by Marshall Cohen et al., Princeton University
Press, Princeton, 1973, 52-84.

“How to Teach and Study the History of Philosophy," Colorado Summer
Seminar, July, 2008.

“God and Evil," Philosophy Talk radio show, June, 2008, hosted by John
Perry and Ken Taylor.

“Inductive Logic and the Probability that God Exists," 36th Annual
Meeting of the Society for Exact Philosophy, University of Wyoming,
May, 2008.

Debate on the Existence of God, with Peter Kreeft of Boston College,
at Wheaton College, Massachusetts, April, 2008, and sponsored by the
Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

“The Refutation of McTaggart’s Argument,” Keynote address,
University of West Virginia, Department of Philosophy Conference “Time
on Trial: 100 Years of McTaggart’s Argument against the Reality of
Time,” April, 2008.

“The Evidential Argument from Evil," University of Alberta at
Edmonton, March 2004.

"The Stalnaker-Lewis Approach to Counterfactuals," University of
Calgary, March 2004.

“The Argument from Evil," West Virginia University, April 2003.

“Rethinking Time," West Virginia University, April 2003.

“The Nature of Basic Tensed Sentences," University of Iowa, April
2003.

E. W. Hall Lecture, “Freedom of Thought and Expression," University
of Iowa, April 2003.

Debate on with Professor Hadley Arkes of the University of
Massachusetts on Abortion, Princeton Bioethics Conference, February
2003.

Four Debates with Michael Horner on the Existence of God, Canadian
Campus Crusade for Christ: the University of Guelph, McMaster
University, University of Waterloo, and the University of Western
Ontario, January 2003.

"The Evidential Argument from Evil," California State University at
Long Beach, Odyssey Project, November 2002.

"Grünbaum on Time," Conference on Adolf Grünbaum, Santa
Barbara City College, October 2002.